1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a profile creation method and a computer readable recording medium stored with a profile creation program.
2. Description of Related Art
In creating a printer profile for an electro-photographic printer, the printer is caused to output a color chart that includes patch images having colors corresponding to combinations of values of C (cyan), M (magenta), Y (yellow), and K (black). Then, the patch images included in the color chart are colorimetrically measured to correlate CMYK values of each patch image with colorimetric values (such as L*a*b* values) thereof, thereby creating a printer profile.
Meanwhile, colors output from a printer have small variation. For example, colors output from a single printer slightly vary per output even in colors with the same CMYK values. In addition, colors output from a plurality of printers slightly vary per printer even in colors with the same CMYK values output from the printers of the same model. The degree of such a color variation per output or per printer varies depending on output color.
Accordingly, there is a concern that when a printer profile is created on the basis of one sheet of a color chart output by a printer, color variation is picked up, thus creating a rather inappropriate printer profile.
With regard to this, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2012-205249 discloses a technique in which profiles are accumulated and when the number of the profiles exceeds a predetermined number, an average profile of the accumulated profiles is calculated. This technique allows an average value (a median value) of color variation to be reflected in a profile, thus allowing the creation of an appropriate printer profile in consideration of color variation.
However, it is not necessarily certain that a printer profile created by averaging a plurality of profiles accurately reflects an average value of color variation. For example, in creating a printer profile by averaging only about a few profiles, if an abnormal profile is included in the only a few profiles, a created profile will not accurately reflect an average value of color variation, which is unfavorable.